Fox News (includes video): The Alliance Defending Freedom, which advocates religious freedom, criticized the school’s decision in a statement. “The censorship of this young student’s poem about her grandfather is repugnant to the First Amendment rights of all students and sends an impermissible message of hostility towards religion,” the group argued.

Christian Civic League Faith Matters in Maine: Protect and prepare for any conflict that same sex marriage will bring to your church. Click here for part 2 of a two part “Faith Matters in Maine” interview with Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. Listen to Faith Matters in Maine with Carroll Conley, Jr. and Bob Emrich every Monday at 6:15 pm (WHCF 88.5, Hodgdon/Houlton 93.7, and Presque Isle 102.7)

Christian Civic League: Protect and prepare for any conflict that same sex marriage will bring to your church. Click here for part 1 of a two part “Faith Matters in Maine” interview with Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom. Part 2 will air next Dec. 3 at 6:15 pm (WHCF 88.5, Hodgdon/Houlton 93.7, and Presque Isle 102.7)

Pieor Tozzi appeared on the The Naked Constitution Podcast by Ricochet.com with host Adam Freedman. “This week, we go to the barricades to defend religious freedom. We’re joined by Piero Tozzi from the Alliance Defending Freedom (formerly the Alliance Defense Fund), an organization on the front lines of the battle. We explore the original understanding of the Establishment Clause as a federalism provision and not – as it has become – a requirement of radical secularism. We also talk about the Free Exercise clause, and how “progressives” have cast it aside. Finally, Piero treats us to a lively discussion of the culture of death, and why the preservation of religion is so important. It’s everything you wanted to know about sects, but were afraid to ask!” | alternative MP3 audio 56:33 mins

Blaze.tv at the Acton Institute Power Blog: On Nov. 19, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico discussed a recent federal court ruling on the Obama Administration’s HHS Contraception Mandate on TheBlaze.com’s Real News. For more on this story, see the Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius resource page on the website of Alliance Defending Freedom.

Alan Sears at the Alliance Defending Freedom: The occupant of the White House isn’t the only thing that hasn’t changed in the last two weeks. Many friends of Alliance Defending Freedom have expressed grave concern about how our work will continue, in the wake of President Barak Obama’s re-election. Although this ministry is committed to being apolitical, there is no denying that this administration has been the most openly and aggressively hostile in American history to religious freedom, to preserving marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and to the protection of life in the womb.

CBN (includes video): For the government to say that a Bible publisher is not religious is alarming,” ADF Attorney Matt Bowman said. “It demonstrates how clearly the Obama administration is willing to disregard the Constitution’s protection of religious freedom to achieve certain political purposes.”

NBC (includes several videos of pastors): About 1,600 pastors across the country violated a 58-year-old ban on political endorsements by churches in October by explicitly backing political candidates in their Sunday sermons, according to the Alliance Defending Freedom of Scottsdale, Ariz., a conservative Christian legal organization behind a campaign called Pulpit Freedom Sunday . . . The Alliance Defending Freedom asserts that it’s working to further the rights of all religious groups, but it’s an explicitly Christian organization, with a heavy representation of evangelical members and leaders. One clue to its philosophy is that it made it Pulpit Freedom “Sunday” — choosing the Christian Sabbath, instead of more broadly embracing the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) and the Muslim day of worship (Friday) . . . But Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said it’s clear that the agency is sidestepping the issue. “We surmise the IRS has shut down all its church audits,” Stanley said. As time goes on, he added, “It may become clear that the IRS has taken the position that it will not censor a pastor.”

MyNorthWest.com (includes audio): Jeremy Tedesco, an attorney for some of the families who say the behavior is inappropriate, say the school needs to put a stop to the policy immediately. “They’re saying that their non-discrimination policy, which prohibits gender identity and gender expression discrimination, doesn’t require them to leave the locker room and not come back,” Tedesco told the Dori Monson Show. “It’s just non-discrimination gone wild. It shows the problem with these expanding non-discrimination policies, which are very popular nowadays.”

CNN Belief Blog (includes video): In a sermon that likely broke the law, Indiana pastor Ron Johnson told his 400 congregants Sunday that for those who believe in the Bible, the decision to vote against President Barack Obama “is a no-brainer.” “For Christian people who believe the Bible is the inspired world of God, it is not rocket science,” Johnson told CNN after his sermon . . . The IRS has the ability and the authority to regulate their sermons. We are giving them the opportunity to do that, and if they challenge that, we will challenge that in court,” said Erik Stanley, Alliance Defending Freedom’s senior legal counsel. “It is all about creating a test case to find the Johnson Amendment as unconstitutional.”

ColoradoConnection.com (Fox21News) (includes ADF video): The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) organization has protested the amendment with an annual ‘Pulpit Freedom Sunday’ in which it encourages pastors across the country to openly engage in political-related sermons. The organization says the Johnson Amendment violates the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which includes freedom of speech and freedom of religion. The ADF launched the idea in 2008 during the presidential election, and 33 pastors participated. In 2009 the number grew to 83, then 100 in 2010 and 539 in 2011. Sunday was 2012′s Pulpit Freedom Sunday, and more than 1,000 pastors are estimated to have participated.

CBN (includes video):
Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is behind the Pulpit Freedom Sunday, spoke more about why he believes the current law is wrong. Click play for his comments, following this report

The Blaze (includes video): “Every pastor and every church has the right to decide what their pastor preaches from the pulpit and to not have that dictated to them by the IRS,” said Erik Stanley, senior legal counsel for the Arizona-based Alliance Defending Freedom, formerly the Alliance Defense Fund. [...] Today’s parishioners, he said, are starving for religious leaders to act as “the moral compass of society.” [Pastor Jim Garlow] said he’s witnessed pastors who boldly speak on political issues receive standing ovations.

LifeSiteNews (video embedded): Pastors of America are “not instructing people about how the bible applies to the national life of the voting electorate,” says Pastor Jim Garlow in a video about Pulpit Freedom Sunday featured at iPledgeSunday, an event held last month by the Family Research Council in Charlotte, North Carolina. Garlow, who has been involved in the event since its inception, is the pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego, California.

Nathan Cherry at Engage Family Minute (links to audio): It’s undebatable that America has benefited greatly from the influence of pastors over the years. But, are today’s pulpits free? Attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom don’t think so and they are using Pulpit Freedom Sunday as a way to protect not only the proper role of the church in our society, but also your right to hear and speak the truth of the Gospel. On Today’s episode of Engaging the Issues, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom explains what pastors can do to protect religious freedom and why they should.